About This Webinar
Flexible displays are here and are being exploited by companies like Samsung, Motorola (Lenovo), Xiaomi, LG, and (by Q4 2017) Apple. These displays, which are lightweight, thin, curved at the edges and shatterproof, are just the beginning. The technology used in flexible displays — OLEDs, polyimide backplanes and thin film encapsulation — is being extended to include plastic integrated covers with the hardness of glass to protect the display against scratching.
In this webinar, Barry Young, CEO of the
OLED Association and an authority on OLED lighting and displays, will review concepts and market trends in OLED technology; then focus the discussion on the timeline and market for foldable displays. He will introduce foldable mobile devices that have been prototyped and will soon reach the market. He will also discuss the challenges to commoditizing flexible OLED displays, including manufacturing complexity and cost.
In a foldable display, the curvature radius could be as low as 1 mm, and must survive hundreds of thousands of folds and unfolds. Engineers have had to redesign what amounts to an integrated circuit on plastic to account for the tight curvature ratio, which means redesigning the conductors and insulators to accommodate the bending.
But perhaps even more significant is the product design from a consumer perspective. The initial product concept is to combine the features of a smartphone and a table, with the equivalent of a 5”-6” folded display and a 9”-10” unfolded device. Choices have included dual and triple folds, both inward and outward. The challenge is to deliver a product with the thickness of today’s smartphones that can also serve as a tablet or even a notebook.
There is a massive opportunity for the display maker who solves these challenges and introduces the first foldable product. The desire for such a product has been so all-consuming that each year since 2015, foldable products have been prototyped and promised; but the first real product has yet to appear.
Presenter Barry Young is CEO of Young Market Research (YMR) and CEO and president of the OLED Association. A leading authority on OLEDs, Young is founder of DisplaySearch and the author of DisplaySearch's OLED, flexible-display, small/medium-display and technology reports. Previously, Young was CEO and president of OWL Displays, where he co-developed innovative driver technology for amorphous silicon (a-Si) and polysilicon (p-Si) TFT LCDs, and was awarded key patents for driving low-temperature polysilicon TFT LCDs.
The
OLED Association (OLED-A) is an industry-based organization that provides a forum for the interchange of technical and market information.
To view a recording of Young’s webinar on OLED Display Technology Update and Forecast, visit
www.photonics.com/W91.
This webinar is sponsored by
admesy advanced measurement systems. Admesy offers a broad range of test and measurement instruments focused on color and light measurements in inline production process environments. At admesy, all products are developed and produced in-house based on a long history of inline testing.